Gulab Jamun Pie

For me Diwali has always been super special. As a kid two things were always my favourite, crackers and sweets. I remember going to all my neighbours, greet them Happy Diwali and then attack on the food.

My only problem used to be that almost all the the households used to have the similar kind of food, so after a while I used to lose interest. While growing up I noticed a tsunami of sweets in the market, chocolates and Kurkures were over taking the Diwali sweets, but now there are so many options in the market. You can get so many different kinds of sweets and desserts, you name it and you can have it. The only problem with all these dishes is that either they are not Indian classical Diwali dishes or too fancy for people to afford or understand what exactly are they eating.

I have a habit of coming up with fusion food, mixing couple of things together ad innovating an interesting dish. So why not we cook something in our kitchen which is pocket friendly, has Indian classical components as well as easily available in the market or in your kitchen and can be enjoyed by anyone in the family?

Today we are making Diwali Gulab Jamun Pie. This dish have following components :

A Pie Crust

Gulab Jamun

Sabayon

Peanut Paraline

Melted Chocolate

All these items can be easily made at your home, or you can buy from the market and assemble it. But the beauty of Diwali is family coming together and sharing their love, so I prefer cooking and surprising all my friends.

Pie Crust

Ingredients:

Cold unsalted butter: 100 gms

All-purpose flour (Maida): 200 gms

Salt: 1 teaspoon

Sugar: 15 gms (1 tablespoon)

Ice Water:40-45 ml (4 tablespoons)Procedure:

Mix the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl.

Add the chilled butter and mix till you get bread crumb consistency

Pour ice water litter by little. (You don’t need to knead the dough, just bring the mixture together and ensure that you can make a ball of your dough)

Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Flour your kitchen counter or board, and roll the dough into a circle

Ensure to not to make it too thick or too thin.

Put it in a pie mould, if there is extra on top, don’t worry just chop it off.

Prick your dish and freeze again for 15-20 minutes

Once chilled properly, bake it for 15-18 minutes at 150 degrees Celsius.

Take it from the over and let it cool for a bit.

Note: You’ll need a 9-inch pie pan, a rolling pin and dried beans. Your butter must be cold or frozen and cut in to cubes. If you are using salted butter then skip the salt from the ingredients.

Gulab Jamun

Ingredients:

Khoya:1 cup

All-purpose flour (Maida): 3 tablespoon

Cooking soda: 1/8 tsp

Elachi: 2

Sugar: 1 1/2 cups

Water: 1 1/2 cups

Saffron (optional): Few strands

Rose essence (optional): 2 drops

Ghee: For deep frying

Procedure:

Crumble Khoya with your hands and mix with maida and cooking soda in a mixing bowl.

Slowly add water and make a smooth dough without any cracks. No need to knead ot too much, make a smooth dough without lumps.

Keep aside for 10-15 mins and make equal sized balls. Ensure to make these balls smooth.

Mix in water, sugar, powdered elachi and saffron, bring to boil and boil for 8 minutes to 10 minutes in medium flame and prepare the sugar syrup.

Heat the ghee (not smoking hot) and fry the jamun. Cook evenly on all the sides. Ensure that the jamuns look golden brown.

Drain in kitchen towel to soak all the excess ghee and immediately add it to hot syrup. Let it get soaked well.

Sabayon

You might be curious that what is Sabayon, so basically sabayon is a kind of custard. If you don’t want to use egg, then you can buy a box of custard mix from the market and cook as per the instructions on the box.

Ingredients:

Egg Yolks-2

Egg: 1

Sugar: 90 gms

Water: 15 ml

Procedure:

Whisk the egg yolks, egg and the sugar together in a bowl

Cook on a double boiler

Once foamy, slowly add water while whisking constantly

Keep whisking until the sauce thickens to a custard-like consistency

Note: You can also add 4 tbsp of Marsala Wine instead of water.

Peanut Paraline

Paraline sounds so English and fancy but we all have had it and in fact this is one of my favourite sweets. Paraline is our normal and humble Chikki which we all have in our houses during winters.

Ingredients:

Roasted Peanuts: 1 cup

Jaggery: 1 cup

Powdered Elaichi: ½ tablespoon

Ghee: 4 tablespoons

Procedure:

Crush your roasted peanuts. If you don’t get roasted peanuts, just take the normal unsalted peanuts and dry roast them in a pan.

Pour 1 drop of jaggery in water, it must form a lump. Then, add roasted peanuts and stir it well. Switch off the flame.

Transfer into a ghee greased plate and spread it. You can cut it in your desired shapes and sizes. Leave it until it becomes cool.

Note: You can make chikki of sesame seeds, almond, cashews or any other dry fruits.

Melted Chocolate

Ingredient:

Dark or milk Chocolate: 50 gms

Procedure:

Melt the chocolate on a double boiler and keep it aside.

So do you think it is doable, is there any complexities in this dish?

Now all our ingredients are ready, let’s assemble our dish.

Step 1:

We will take our pie crust and quote it with the melted chocolate. What melted chocolate does is it seals the pie and helps in remove the sogginess which comes from pouring any liquid. Once you are done quoting the chocolate, let it set for 4-5 minutes.

Step 2:

Crush the peanut Paraline (chikki) roughly and mix in your sabayon. Let it set for a bit in the fridge.

Step 3:

Slice the Gulab Jamun and layer it in the pie.

Step 4:

Spread the Sabayon in the pie on top of gulab jamun

Step 5:

Let it set for 10-15 minutes in freezer, and then add one more layer of Gulab Jamun on top. Garnish with some extra crushed peanut Paraline.